


it's my own body, i did what i wanted, (ever since god made me bleed)

by cryptidwintersoldier



Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: All hurt no comfort, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Bucky Barnes Recovering, Bucky Barnes-centric, Endgame Fix-It, Everyone Needs A Hug, Kinda, M/M, Oblivious Steve Rogers, Post-Endgame, and why bucky looked that sad, bucky is endlessly sad, endgame make it hurt more, except Steve, more like, pepper is endlessly kind, sorta - Freeform, takes place before during and after tony's funeral, this is why steve did what he did
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-06
Updated: 2019-08-06
Packaged: 2020-08-10 09:36:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,935
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20133289
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cryptidwintersoldier/pseuds/cryptidwintersoldier
Summary: “I’m not going back for a dance, Buck.” Steve is flustered and sounds almost frustrated with Bucky, each word has a sort of edge that makes him bristle and want to step back. No, it makes him want to run away from what he already knew was coming, but Steve never backed down from a fight, so Bucky stands up and walks towards Steve, looking him up and down.“So you’re going back to-- what, exactly?” He knows by that point, he’s just asking because some sick part of himself is only interested in making this some sort of torturing, drawn-out explanation. Of all the pain he’d experienced, he couldn’t figure out why this hurt more than all the rest.“A family-- the life I was supposed to have before the ice, before the Avengers. Before--”





	it's my own body, i did what i wanted, (ever since god made me bleed)

**Author's Note:**

> Title from You Are the Coffin by flatsound!  
I've honest to god been working on this fic since the movie came out but haven't had the energy to write, yikes  
un-beta'd, all mistakes are mine

“You can’t wear a motorcycle jacket to a funeral.”

“Like hell I can-- I was dead for five years,” Bucky tosses a pillow off of the hotel bed, landing it on the floor with a pathetic thud; Steve doesn’t have to think when he steps over it as he paces back and forth at with an even, steady pace. 

“At least wear a shirt under it?” Steve doesn’t stop walking, but does look at Bucky for a fleeting second. 

“Yeah-- I was thinking this,” he tugs at the hem of the shirt he’s wearing-- one of Steve’s, actually, lent to him to sleep in. 

Steve does stop walking this time and gives Bucky a _ look _ before returning to his pacing in the empty space of the hotel room in front of the two beds, his leather shoes hardly making a sound against the generic pattern of the stiff carpet. 

“Okay-- fine, fine, how about the shirt you’re wearing-- that looks like it might fit me,” Bucky continues to tug at Steve’s nerves, already aware that something is very _ obviously _ on Steve’s mind. “You know, if you wear a hole in the carpet, we’ll have to pay for it.”

“Ha-ha,” Steve stammers on his words for a beat. “A suit-- please? You look handsome when you dress up.”

“I _ am _ wearing a suit,” he counters, pushing himself up from his recline on the bed, making it obvious how he was watching Steve pace himself to exhaustion-- as task that could literally take months. 

“A motorcycle suit isn’t a _ suit _,” Steve sighs, defeated, letting out a chuckle at the end. “I know you didn’t like the guy-- but what he did…” He trails off, his lips tightening into a straight line with a shake of his head, the reality of Tony’s death hitting him once again. 

“What if I wear a shirt-- nice one-- under the motorcycle jacket?” Bucky suggested, cocking a brow. 

“Y’know-- I’ll take it.” Steve is still pacing and Bucky wants to knock him over, but his lug of a friend is too stupid to know that he knows that something is up, so he continues to play innocent. 

“Shirt tucked in,” he adds, feeling as though he’s won. 

“Jacket’s long enough, no one will see it,” Steve cocks his brow back, as if to indicate a checkmate. 

Bucky gave a little grumble as he settled back into the mound of pillows behind him-- it was late, and he was _ tired. _ They don’t tell you how tiring death is, or how tired coming _ back _ from the dead is. His bones were still resettling, his skin still adjusting-- and maybe it was just because his skin hadn’t been his own for so long, but he was having trouble rebuilding himself _ again, _for what must’ve been the upteenth time. Maybe there was a time where a suit and tie paired with a clean shave would have been his outfit of choice, or maybe it was and he just didn’t want to waste it on Tony. 

Maybe he was reading into things a little too much. 

Steve-- the sweet idiot he was-- was still pacing back and forth in the open space of the hotel room where they were spending the night before the funeral. With the compound decimated and Steve, in the way Steve always did, letting other people stay in the guest rooms in the Stark house or whatever room there was for the others, left them the next best option of the shared a hotel room. 

And Bucky had almost let himself be hopeful about the time alone, but he _ knew _ what was coming. 

“Seriously, if you wear out the carpet, we’re gonna have to pay for it, or you’ll fall through the floor before you realize it,” he wasn’t sure how much longer he could keep this up; he could smell the stress on Steve and it seemed almost cruel to let him sit in it. “Something on your mind, bud?” He tried to give him an avenue to talk.

“Nothing-- no, no, Buck--” He finally stopped pacing, standing by the window, looking out at what he could see of the modest town that Tony had chosen to retire to-- the clean blue light playing on his cheekbones like he was some kind of angel. 

Steve seemed to struggle to find the words-- surely it would be an excuse about how knowing Tony and Natasha were truly gone was jarring and how he was still trying to adjust. And Bucky would respect it if he said it-- hell, thinking of Natasha has being _ dead _ was hard enough for Bucky. He had seen her pull herself out of certain death like she was walking down the sidewalk: she was unstoppable, invincible even if a fight put her at a disadvantage, and now she was gone. 

“You saw her,” Bucky finally muttered after a pause, eyes trained very carefully on Steve, who bristled at the words. 

“I.. yeah,” he choked as if scared to admit it. “I did.”

It was Bucky’s turn to look pensive, now, his lips becoming the same straight line as Steve’s, but his heart pounding in his chest like it was still learning how to beat at all. He had known Steve long enough to know what he was thinking maybe even before Steve knew what he was thinking-- but Steve was clear headed and Bucky had known the choice was made before they had been reunited. For once, he just let himself be hopeful enough to let him believe his decades-old intuition might not be right this time. 

“How was she?” He tries to ask, not sure if it’s the right question at all.

“Seemed alright--” Steve’s voice doesn’t falter-- it is clear, almost professional in the way begins his thought, yet he trails off, crossing the room and sitting at the foot of Bucky’s bed. 

Bucky doesn’t really know what to say; watching Steve struggle, thinking that he doesn’t know what’s coming is painful, but the sting of ripping off the band-aid. There’s an awkward, lingering break of silence as the conversation dangles between them, both at opposite ends of the room like two mismatched couplets. 

“When are you going back?” 

They both take in a breath after Bucky says the words, eyes locking on each other. Steve is uneasy, to say the least-- eyes blown open like he had just seen a ghost while Bucky is almost _ too _calm about the whole thing. Steve looks away first and Bucky feels like he’s broken the stalemate and has backed Steve into a corner; he tries not to look like he’s gloating. 

Eyes still cast on the ground, posture straight as ever and almost with some kind of shame, Steve responds back with a short. “Tomorrow.”

The reality of it still bites at Bucky when he hears it, hits him where it hurts because even though he expected it and had all but heard Steve said it. 

“Tomorrow,” he repeated into the air, trying to wrap his head around it. 

“Tomorrow,” Steve backs himself into the literal corner of the room , still refusing to even look at Bucky.

Bucky’s eyes are trained on Steve like he’s the only thing he’s ever known how to look at and really, truly see. He nods, taking a deep breath as though if he doesn’t, he might mess up and say something he shouldn’t.

“Did you talk to her?” He asked, backtracking their conversation to moments ago when the reality of Steve leaving hadn’t been spoken, only assumed. 

A flicker of shame is evident when Steve simply mutters: “No, we didn’t.” 

“And you’re going back?”

“Yes,” the shame is gone and Steve pulls his shoulders back, finally able to lift his head and look at Bucky. “She had my picture on her desk.”

Bucky can’t help but let out a short, choked laugh. “Your picture?” His voice finds a bit of a playful lilt. “So you’re gonna go back in time for a dance just because she had your picture out?” He tries not to sound too mocking or stunned, but his tone is more obvious than he intends.

“I’m not going back for a dance, Buck.” Steve is flustered and sounds almost frustrated with Bucky, each word has a sort of edge that makes him bristle and want to step back. No, it makes him want to run away from what he already knew was coming, but Steve never backed down from a fight, so Bucky stands up and walks towards Steve, looking him up and down.

“So you’re going back to-- what, exactly?” He knows by that point, he’s just asking because some sick part of himself is only interested in making this some sort of torturing, drawn-out explanation. Of all the pain he’d experienced, he couldn’t figure out why this hurt more than all the rest.

“A family-- the life I was supposed to have before the ice, before the Avengers. Before--”

“Before you ran off and nearly got yourself killed? Before you got injected with some concoction made in a lab that made you all big and strong and invincible? You can just do _ anything _ now, can’t you!” He can’t help but interrupt Steve, cutting him off in a flurry of frustration, prodding his finger at his chest. 

Steve opens his mouth, words failing to take shape. In the way only Steve knows how, he collects himself and actually pushes past Bucky, rifling through the pile of clothes that was growing on the end of Bucky’s bed, folding the shirts first. 

“Really?” Bucky trails behind him, staring at his back, watching how Steve’s shoulders flex and release with the build of tension in his frame, over and over. If Steve could run away from a fight, Bucky thinks this is the one he would flee from the fastest. 

“It’s my choice-- I’m already going back to put the stones back where they belong in the timeline, I’ve done everything I need to do.” A shirt falls to the floor, before Bucky can even think to move for it, Steve picks it up and folds it neatly.

“What about her-- doesn’t she have a husband? Kids? What happens when you’re stranded in the past with her happy and moved on with her life, and me being tortured in some lab in Russia! What are you gonna do then, Steve?” He bites, picking up one of the pieces of clothing and folding it-- much less neatly than Steve was able to-- and adding it to the pile. Steve picks it up and refolds it, earning a glare from Bucky. 

“I know what I’m doing, Buck, you can back off.” Steve finally snaps, turning so he’s standing facing Bucky like a wall, blocking his view of anything else. 

“Of course you do, you’re not even going to give her a chance to meet the guy. You’re just going to waltz in there and offer your _ best gal _that damn dance, aren’t you? And everything will be fine, and you can sit on the sidelines while the world moves around you.” Bucky can’t stop himself, every word comes out more aggressive than the last and before he knows it, he’s pushing Steve away and storming off to the hotel bathroom, slamming the door behind him. 

He doesn’t hear footsteps behind him, which relieves him for a moment. But before he can calm himself down to an even half-reasonable level, there’s a light rapping at the door. He pretends he doesn’t hear it and turns on the sink to splash some water on his face. 

“Buck?” Steve’s voice is soft and clear, Bucky thinks that if he spoke, it would sound like a cracking mess of what could be screaming if he weren’t so damn soft for Steve. 

Again, he doesn’t respond. Once the water is shut off, he stares at the door, watching the shadow of Steve’s still feet, waiting for him to walk away.

“Buck.” Steve asserts, tapping at the door again. “I’m not the only one who can go back,” he offers, his voice rife with care and concern. It reminds Bucky of the voice people use when they think he’s crazy; he frowns and doesn’t open the door, much less speak. 

“You could find yourself a gal-- you used to be so good at that, I’m sure after a while, you’d feel right at home, you’d pick up your magic again and all those missing pieces might start making sense,” he sees Steve’s shadow move, now, but rather than walking away, he sits down, only allowing for a sliver of light to be visible from under the door. 

His arms crossed over his chest out of pure habit, feeling as though he had to protect himself from the only person who knew how to hurt him but never had. 

“We could finally have that future we dreamed of when we were kids-- living across the road from each other in those houses we used to see in magazines. Each of us with our families-- our wives-- I’m sure you’ll find the best gal in Brooklyn-- and our kids, and we’ll always be right there for each other. It won’t be like ma’s cooking but we can still have Sunday dinner together every week-- we, _ you _, can have what they took away.” Steve can spin this imaginary, impossible future like it’s a beautiful dream that Bucky can almost give in to letting himself believe that he could have it.

Bucky breaks his silence with only a soft mumbling of Steve’s name, tone falling somewhere between wistful and heartbroken. He opens the door finally, able to look at Steve, who’s honest to God tearing up as he looks up from the scratchy hotel carpet, anticipating some kind of reaction out of Bucky. He wishes he could give him some kind of reaction, but he’s at a loss; he thinks for a moment about stepping over Steve and just folding himself into bed, waiting for the morning to deal with it. But, he sits down on the cold tile of the bathroom, the line separating the tile from the carpet as a soft of demarcation that makes him feel safe. 

Steve smiles, expecting some kind of response that Bucky is still not capable of giving or even being able to formulate. He awkwardly draws his legs to his chest, using his metal arm to hold them close while the flesh one rests at his side. “That’s not--” He begins, stopping as soon as he begins to regret starting. 

“I know what you’re going to say-- and it _ is _ possible. With Pym back, there are enough particles that… that we can both go back, hell, you should come back with me to put the stones where they belong, one last spin around before we settle down,” he breeches the barrier, brushing his hand over Bucky’s forearm. “One last fight, then we can have the lives we were supposed to have.”

\--

Bucky isn’t very sure of much of what came before Hydra anymore, though thanks to the months of work he did trying to recover memories with more than a little help from Steve gave him sketches of what might have happened. And he remembered distinctly, like it happened yesterday, the night he asked Steve if they had been together during the war. 

“Before, even,” Steve had explained to him as they laid on opposite sides of a bed, not touching. Bucky had begun to place memories and occurrences that didn’t match up with the information he had been given to help guide him in such exploration. One of the Wakandan doctors defended the decision to him, saying that he might not have been ready for something so Earth-shattering, worrying that Bucky might have resented Steve if he had known the truth. 

“So we?” He had asked, earning a knowing nod from Steve, to which Bucky nodded back, curling against Steve, burying his face against his arm. It wasn’t like they hadn’t been intimate while in Wakanda before he knew, but there was always a familiarity in the movements that he never understood. “Did we love each other?” Bucky asked without thinking, propping himself up on his arms so he could look at Steve in the flickering light. 

Steve hesitated for a moment, responding with a soft “we did,” and a hesitant, tight smile. 

“We did?”

“We did.”

“But we couldn’t back then, could we?”

“Not outside of the apartment.”

Bucky had asked what he had meant, and Steve explained how they had laid in bed all those nights Steve was too sick to move and they would pass the hours dreaming aloud of what a better future for them could look like. It began with little wishes of medicine finding cures for everything that ailed Steve, which grew into fantasies shared of a life in an apartment with more consistent water, and, eventually, one where they could get married like their parents had been able to, or like all their friends could plan with near certainty that if the War didn’t eat them first. 

\--

So when Steve, some five years later, now tells him of some playground discussions had when he was too sick to play whatever game was going on, before they had ever confessed their feelings for each other. He frowns and pulls his arm away from Steve’s touch, taking in a sharp breath, feeling cheated as Steve peddles out some story just so he can live with himself and justify that the choice he was making was the right one.

“Buck…” Steve tries to look empathetic, but Bucky just can’t convince himself that he means it. 

“Steve, that’s all fine and good for you, if that’s what you want,” he tries not to let his voice shake too much, purposely avoiding looking at any bit of Steve. 

“It’s what _ you _ wanted too, for _ both _ of us, and now you’re just going to walk away from that chance?” He huffs, clearly judging him; Bucky bruises at the sting of it. 

“Do what you want, Steve.”

It might have been a moment for a final dance-- the dance that Steve promised him decades ago but, unlike his appointment with Peggy, Steve had forgotten all about it. It wasn’t the time for something like that at all. If Steve weren’t so insufferably stupid in all the wrong ways, Bucky would bridge the gap between them and wrap his arms around Steve just to sway the two of them side to side, dancing to a tune that belonged just to them, but this wasn’t the time or place for make beleive games and playground promises anymore. Instead, he pushed himself to his feet, standing up from the cold confines of the bathroom where the two of them were posed like opposing pawns, each of them too autonomous for their own good, and walked to the bed he had previously occupied, leaving Steve behind him. 

After a while, Bucky heard Steve walk into the main area of the hotel room. He thought to make a smart comment about how long Steve say there wallowing or maybe make a quip about how he hopes Steve has a nice future in his past, but he’s too tired to provoke Steve any more than he already has, because even the smallest provocation would elicit a response from Steve. He lays down on the bed adjacent from the one Bucky is curled up in, and he seems to purposely face away from Bucky, not giving him so much as an acknowledgement as he pulls the thin, powder-white sheet over himself, settling in and falling asleep nearly instantly, indicated by his now even, deep breaths. 

Fuck Steve, Bucky decides, fuck him for being so stupid, so stubborn, and so perfect. 

Bucky doesn’t sleep much that night; he catches moments of something that nearly drifts into sleep-like territory but is, without fail, brought back to life by the noise of Steve shifting ever so slightly on the other bed, and Bucky’s attention is brought back to a laser focus on Steve until he can catch his next few moments of sleep, and so on. 

At some point, Bucky finds himself dragging his eyes up and down the contours of Steve’s body beneath the too-clean sheet, trying to memorize him for the last time so he has at least one memory of his own that he can hold onto, not just the ones that were relayed to him during night time catchups.

“Steve,” he whispers, testing if he’s really as fast asleep as he seems, and, sure enough, no response. “Steve?” He tries again, and, again, nothing but Steve’s even, peaceful breath. 

“I, uh, I still don’t remember a whole lot from before… before this whole thing,” he confesses aloud. “I can’t keep up sometimes,” he laughs aloud, not sure if it’s to himself or at himself. He had made his best effort, really, when he had tried to adjust to life outside of Hydra. He would sit for hours with Steve, who, against the better advice given to him, was happy to talk to hours about their shared youth, able to recount in almost too-good detail every date he recalled Bucky having gone on, every meal they shared, every antic gotten into, every fight picked. Steve seemed to have a vice grip around the past, holding onto every moment and memory and he was more than happy to tell him everything; he was eager, almost, as if it was for every moment in the past he could describe to Bucky, the recovered time could smooth over the deep-set wrinkles in his face and repair all the scars incurred from his years of servitude. 

He really did try his best to focus and conjure up faces for every name Steve gave him, but more often than sometimes it would wind up in a confused mess, and Bucky tried to sit and just not look confused, happy to indulge Steve in, at the very least, getting to share what seemed to be his better times. 

Bucky had remembered that he had loved Steve, though he didn’t think he could ever forget something like that. It was the only memory he had really committed to carry forward with him. Sure, his only vague knowledge of the past was hardly enough to even construct a skeleton of a person like Bucky who might have existed before Hydra, and once every effort had been exhausted with little results, living life feeling like a half-someone, died twice and born only a week ago, was a reality Bucky was learning to be content with. 

But God, if he could, he’d cut himself down and carve himself into the Bucky that Steve had wanted back them. But Steve didn’t want him anymore, and Bucky had no footing where Steve was off to. 

Bucky still looks at Steve and does his best to numb his stream of thoughts, guiding them until they’re a slow montage of the memories he does remember, not the ones he was fed and tries to fill in later. In his mind, Steve is lithe and sickly and Bucky loves every part of him, and Bucky drifts off, his view of Steve moving in and out of focus as reality slips from him, desperate to put off morning as long as possible. 

Daybreak does come, though, and Bucky is up shortly after Steve. Neither of them say a word and move past each other as they get ready. Steve stands in front of the hotel bathroom shaving for what feels like forever, his meticulousness intense and prolonged, somehow wanting to look more perfect than he already did. Bucky vaguely remembers shaving in the Brooklyn apartment, a smaller Steve watching him with the same attentiveness he now paid to Steve, he brushes the memory off, saving it for a day when Steve is gone. 

They walk through the small town to Tony’s funeral in near silence until Steve finally pipes up halfway through. “When I’m gone,” he says without looking at him, “someone’s going to need to take my place.”

“Someone?”

“Someone who’s fought by my side since the beginning.”

“That’s really what you’re thinking?” Bucky crosses the street before Steve, who catches up to him a moment later. 

“If you don’t want it I under--”

“I don’t want it, Steve.”

“C’mon,” Steve stops them on the sidewalk, hand reaching out for Bucky’s forearm. “Maybe that could be… the ticket to this whole thing… having something to fight for again.”

Bucky doesn’t want to start anything before the funeral, so he just shakes his head and thanks Steve for the thought. As they walk, Steve explains his plans for he and Peggy until they’re on the Starks’ property. 

“Maybe Sam,” Bucky offers finally, met with nothing until they spot Pepper and Steve begins his condolences. 

\--

The whole service is nice, Bucky thinks. Steve stands at the front, close to Pepper and everyone who had been close to Tony; Bucky, not wanting to take up room that should have been for someone who deserves it, stands at the back of the crowd and watches the whole thing from a distance. He doesn’t cry once, Tony’s death isn’t exactly his to mourn and he had more pressing losses to worry about. 

When Steve does leave, they share few words in preparation and Steve is more concerned about making sure Bucky remembers what he’s supposed to do once Steve is gone and returns seconds later. He tries not to look at Steve in those final moments before he disappears, he imagines himself running after Steve and knocking him off of the platform and holding him, just holding him, and begging him to stay. 

But he doesn’t, and Steve disappears just as suddenly as he came into Bucky’s life, and back into it, and back, and back, and back, and until the countdown to Steve’s planned return ends, Bucky lets himself believe that he’ll come back. 

When he doesn’t, Bucky plays the part that Steve had meant for him to play, and Steve hands the sheild off to Sam, which Bucky is grateful for. Steve doesn’t look back at him once, and Bucky leaves with just enough time left to convince himself that there would be enough time left for Steve to look back and notice he was gone, but even that felt like a lie. 

He wanders on the grounds for what feels like forever, never really stopping, but slowing enough to snap a twig beneath his feet or crunch a pile of leaves, he couldn’t remember the last time he had seen an autumn this red, but he also couldn’t remember the last autumn he’d seen, so maybe it was just a mountain built out of a molehill. It’s just a way to kill time before going back to the hotel room, an inevitable something that he’d rather not think about. 

Pepper catches him wandering at some point when the sun begins to set, he apologizes and offers weak condolences, to which she puts on the same brave face he saw her hold the whole day, and as he begins to walk off on that long trek back to the hotel, she invites him in, we have a spare bedroom, she calls out to him, he’d want you to meet Morgan, she says. 

Time spent with Pepper, Morgan, and the few others who had been close to Tony was better than any more time spent with Steve, he decides during the quiet afternoon, which eventually becomes evening, and eventually he is being shown to a modest bedroom on the second floor. Pepper explains who had stayed there the night before, and how now they had somewhere to go, how they still _ had _ somewhere to go after coming back. 

Maybe this is why Steve went back, he reasons. But there was nothing more for Bucky in the past than in the present. 

Sleep still doesn’t come easy to Bucky and when his tossing and turning proves fruitless, he gets up and pokes around the room, noticing each family photograph framed and hung on the walls to displayed on undoubtedly too-expensive and too-small tables. It was surprisingly quaint, Bucky thinks. 

He rustles through the bathroom and through the drawers, finding the normal toothbrush, toothpaste, shaving supplies, soap, and so on, that he expected to find. When he comes across a pair of scissors, he reaches for it and holds it for a moment, remembering what Steve had said about the 30’s, how Bucky had enough charm for the whole city and girls were practically lining up to dance with him. He makes the first snip of his long hair without thinking, a thick chunk of it falling in the sink, followed by another. There’s nothing grand about it; no feeling nearly as liberating as he thought there might be.

When the sun comes up, Bucky has every hair shortened and exactly where he wants it. He follows the marathon haircut with a shave, running the blade over the same patch of skin till the hairs are non existent. Is this what Steve wanted, he thinks, is this what Steve _ loved _? He’s not sure he recognizes himself in the mirror. 

It’s only after that when he can crawl into bed and sleep finds him almost instantly, the cool breezing through the window and chilling the back of his exposed neck. He dreams of dancing, he dreams of an apartment somewhere in Brooklyn, and he dreams of a Steve who had abandoned him long ago.

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> i can be found at sapphicsteverogers.tumblr.com!  
please comment and kudos if you enjoyed!!


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